My Racist Encounter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner | Seema Jilani

Seema Jilani

As I left the hotel and my husband went to the ballroom for the dinner, I realized he still had my keys. I approached the escalators that led down to the ballroom and asked the externally contracted security representatives if I could go down. They abruptly responded, “You can’t go down without a ticket.” I explained my situation and that I just wanted my keys from my husband in the foyer and that I wouldn’t need to enter in the ballroom. They refused to let me through. For the next half hour, they watched as I frantically called my husband but was unable to reach him.

Then something remarkable happened. I watched as they let countless other women through — all Caucasian — without even asking to see their tickets. I asked why they were allowing them to go freely when they had just told me that I needed a ticket. Their response? “Well, now we are checking tickets.” He rolled his eyes and let another woman through, this time actually checking her ticket. His smug tone, enveloped in condescension, taunted, “See? That’s what a ticket looks like.”

When I asked “Why did you lie to me, sir?” they threatened to have the Secret Service throw me out of the building — me, a 4’11″ young woman who weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, who was all prettied up in elegant formal dress, who was simply trying to reach her husband. The only thing on me that could possibly inflict harm were my dainty silver stilettos, and they were too busy inflicting pain on my feet at the moment. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw the men ask a blonde woman for her ticket and she replied, “I lost it.” The snickering tough-guy responded, “I’d be happy to personally escort you down the escalators ma’am.”

Like a malignancy, it had crept in when I least expected it — this repugnant, infectious bigotry we have become so accustomed to. “White privilege” was on display, palpable to passersby who consoled me. I’ve come to expect this repulsive racism in many aspects of my life, but when I find it entrenched in these smaller encounters is when salt is sprinkled deep into the wounds. In these crystallizing moments it is clear that while I might see myself as just another all-American gal who has great affection for this country, others see me as something less than human, more now than ever before.

When I asked why the security representatives offered to personally escort white women without tickets downstairs while they watched me flounder, why they threatened to call the Secret Service on me, I was told, “We have to be extra careful with you all after the Boston bombings.”

I explained that I am a physician, that my husband is a noted journalist for a major American newspaper, and that our guest was an esteemed, Oscar-nominated director. They did not believe me. Never mind that the American flag flew proudly outside of our home for years, with my father taking it inside whenever it rained to protect it from damage. Never mind that I won “Most Patriotic” almost every July 4th growing up. Never mind that I have provided health care to some of America’s most underprivileged, even when they have refused to shake my hand because of my ethnicity.

I looked at him, struggling to bury my tears beneath whatever shred of dignity that remained. They finally saturated my lashes and flood onto my face. Shaking with rage, I said, “We are all human beings and I only ask that you give me the same respect you give others. All I am asking is to be treated with a dignity and humanity. What you did is wrong.” They stared straight ahead, arms crossed, and refused to even look at me. Up came the cruel, xenophobic, soundproof wall that I had seen in the eyes of so many after 9/11. Their eyes, flecked with disdain and hatred, looked through me.

The next affront came quickly thereafter. “You were here last year, weren’t you? You caused trouble here last year too. I know you,” they claimed, accusing me of being a party-crasher. Completely confused, I explained that this was my first time here and that I had no idea what he was referencing. Clearly, he had assumed all brown people look the same and had confused me for someone else.

I wonder what their reaction would have been to a well-dressed white woman trying to reach her husband. Would she have struggled for over an hour while they watched and offered to escort others in? Would they not have extended an offer to help, bended over backwards to offer assistance, just as they did with the woman who “lost her ticket”? Would the Boston bombings even be mentioned to a white woman?

Let’s stop this facade that we are a beacon of tolerance. I don’t need you to “tolerate” me. I don’t want you to merely put up with my presence. All I ask, all I have ever asked, is to be treated as a human being, that bigoted jingoism is not injected into every minute facet my life, that there remains at least the illusion of decency.

Despite being a native English speaker who was born in New Orleans and a physician who trained at a prestigious institution, all people see is the color of my skin. After this incident, I will no longer apologize, either for my faith or my complexion. It is not my job to convince you to distinguish me from the violent sociopaths that claim to be Muslims, whose terrorism I neither support, nor condone. It is your job. Just like when a disturbed young white man shoots up a movie theatre or a school, it is my job, as someone with a conscience, to distinguish them from others. It’s not my job to plead with you to shake my hand without cringing, nor am I going to applaud you when you treat me with common decency; it’s not an accomplishment. It’s simply the right thing to do. Honestly, it’s not that hard.

This year, Quvenzhané Wallis took the world by storm with her staggering performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild. At several award ceremonies, reporters refused to the learn the accurate pronunciation of her name, and one reporter allegedly told Wallis, “I’m gonna call you Annie,” because her name was too difficult to pronounce. If reporters can learn to pronounce Gerard Depardieu and Monique Lhuillier then surely they can take the time to learn how to pronounce Quvenzhané. It’s not hard; it’s just not deemed worthy of your energy because she is someone of color.

A school child recently threatened my 12-year-old niece claiming, “I’m going to kill you Miss Bin Laden.” Again, it is not my job to teach your children manners and social justice, to remove the disgusting threads of racism that you have woven into their hearts with your insecurities. Last week, a 39-year-old Muslim American cab driver who served in the Iraq war was attacked and had his jaw broken in a hate crime. The assailant, an executive from an aviation company, told the veteran “I will slice your fucking throat right now.” I suppose the “support the troops” rhetoric by the right only applies to white veterans.

It wasn’t enough that I have had to prove my “American-ness” at every step of my career, but now the next generation is suffering as well. It wasn’t enough that I was asked whether my father taught me how to make bombs, or that I was told that I was doomed to the seventh circle of hell during my medical school interviews. I was also asked whether I would wear a burqa or if my parents would arrange my marriage during interviews. It is outrageous that I have to actually prove to the world how horrified I am that an 8-year-old boy was brutally murdered by a terrorist bombing. Any normal human being feels this agonizing grief with the rest of the country. I do not have to prove to you that, I, too, find it morally reprehensible. Of course I do. I have a heart. I am human.

So, I no longer want a seat at your restaurant, where you serve me begrudgingly, where I am belittled for asking for food without pork, where I endure your dirty looks at my hijabi friend. I want my pride intact, I want this struggle of mine to be recognized, for you to look me in the eye and acknowledge that yes, this tumor called bigotry is indeed rivering through your veins, polluting your mind, and is so malignant that it compels you to squash my dignity.

It’s the little indignities that slowly devastate your soul. The ones where your guard is down, and you just expect to dress up, look pretty, and enjoy an evening as a newlywed, or at the Oscars, but instead end up humiliated and snubbed. The ubiquitous racist slap in the face is thinly veiled just beneath the carefully crafted façade. This filthy, highly infectious plague is transforming our nation into one of unwarranted suspicion and anguish inflicted on disenfranchised, voiceless people of color. And now, it is no longer my job to enlighten you. To quote what you so often tell ethnic communities, “It’s time for you to step up to the plate, take responsibility, and stop taking what I have earned,” my integrity, my dignity.

Reprint: My Racist Encounter at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner -By Seema Jilani | HuffPost

 

Maryland Becomes the 18th State to Abolish the Death Penalty | HRW

Maryland on May 2, 2013, became the sixth US state in six years to abolish the death penalty, continuing a trend to end this inherently cruel punishment in the United States. Maryland’s governor should commute the sentences of the five men who remain on the state’s death row.

Gov. Martin O’Malley on May 2 signed a bill abolishing the state’s death penalty and replacing it with the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, the law does not directly affect the five inmates in the state awaiting execution. O’Malley has said he will determine on a case-by-case basis whether to commute their sentences.

“By repealing the death penalty, Maryland joins a growing group of states in rejecting a cruel and inherently unjust practice,” said Alba Morales, US criminal justice researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Governor O’Malley should build on his tremendous leadership on this issue by commuting the death sentences of the five men still on death row.”

Maryland’s repeal of the death penalty is just the latest sign of growing momentum against capital punishment in the United States. With the addition of Maryland, 18 states and the District of Columbia have rejected the death penalty. Legislatures in several other states are considering bills to repeal capital punishment. Parallel with these developments, the number of executions in the United States has declined in recent years – with a total of 43 executions nationwide in 2011 and again in 2012, compared with 85 in 2000.

Human Rights Watch [and this blogger] strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible and inhumane punishment. Furthermore, the death penalty is inevitably plagued with arbitrariness, racial disparities, and error. In the US, 142 people have been released from death row since 1973 after presenting evidence of their innocence. Kirk Bloodworth, the first person in the United States to be released from death row by DNA evidence, was at the May 2 signing ceremony.

In Maryland, as in many US states, application of the death penalty has been marred by significant racial disparities –four of the five men on Maryland’s death row are African-Americans whose victims were white – and wide discrepancies between jurisdictions. People were far more likely to be sentenced to death, for example, if they committed their crimes in Baltimore County as opposed to the neighboring city of Baltimore.

Since the repeal bill makes no provision for the five men on death row, they could still be executed after exhausting all their appeals. Under the Maryland constitution, the governor has the power to commute sentences. O’Malley should ensure that the death penalty is never again used in Maryland by immediately commuting the sentences of all five death row inmates, Human Rights Watch said.

The new law’s failure to make the repeal of the death penalty retroactive is contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party. All state governments are bound to abide by its provisions. The covenant states that if a law reduces a criminal penalty, that law should be retroactive. The US included a reservation when it ratified the treaty in 1992 that it would not adhere to this provision, stating that, “US law generally applies to an offender the penalty in force at the time the offense was committed.”

“Maryland did the right thing by ending government-sanctioned killing,” Morales said. “The 32 states that still allow the death penalty should follow Maryland’s lead and end this inhumane practice.”

Reprint: Maryland Abolishes Death Penalty | HRW

 

Willie J. Manning Granted Stay of Execution -By Andrew Cohen | The Atlantic

By a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court of Mississippi this afternoon halted the scheduled execution of Willie Manning just hours before the convicted murderer was to be put to death by lethal injection at the Parchman prison in Sunflower. In their brief order, which you can read for yourself here, the justices did not give any reason for blocking the execution, and it is unclear at this time exactly how the case will proceed from here.

Manning, who is black, was convicted in 1994 for the murder of two white university students in 1992. He has maintained his innocence ever since, amid troublesome (and growing) questions about the accuracy and reliability of the evidence on which his conviction and death sentence are based. Manning’s long-ago trial was marked by racial bias in jury selection, for example, and a jailhouse informant, who incriminated Manning in 1994, has since sought to recant his trial testimony.

But the Mississippi court’s order Tuesday is likely based upon the scientific evidence that was and was not introduced at trial. Manning’s attorneys have long argued that state officials should test DNA and fingerprint evidence from the crime scene — evidence that has never been tested and that would either incriminate Manning definitively or perhaps identify someone else who may have committed the crimes. The state has consistently refused to undertake this testing even though the FBI has offered to do it, and Mississippi has a remarkable recent record of exonerating criminal defendants in such a fashion.

As a matter of law, the absence of this testing from a shaky case like this was likely enough to warrant a stay of Manning’s execution. But the state’s refusal to test its DNA evidence was made even more pronounced over the past few days by the intervention of federal officials. Since May 2, the Justice Department has sent three letters to the attorneys in the case announcing that the feds now are backing away from the “ballistics” and “hair fiber” testimony their so-called “expert” testified about at Manning’s trial. State prosecutors heavily relied on that now-discredited evidence at trial — as have state court judges ever since — as proof that Manning’s conviction was secure enough to warrant his execution.

The state came within four hours of executing Manning despite the conceded inaccuracy and unreliability of the scientific evidence against him, despite the willingness of a jailhouse informant to recant, despite racial bias in jury selection. It came within hours of executing the man, even though the scientific evidence that could exonerate him was never tested. No matter what happens now — and don’t forget Manning is still a long way from being out of trouble — it is a credit to the eight Mississippi justices who voted for the stay that they were willing to change their minds about this case. Last month, by a vote of 5-4, this same court refused to require the DNA testing.

Excerpt, read: Hours Before Execution, a State Court Grants Willie Manning a Stay  -By Andrew Cohen | The Atlantic

Related: Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Writes a Remarkable Political ‘Dissent’ To Willie Manning’s Stay of Execution –By Radley Balko | HuffPost

 

Three Cleveland Women, Missing 10 Years, Found Alive

“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry … I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here, I’m free now.”

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SUMMARY
On May 6, 2013, three women from Cleveland, Ohio – Amanda Berry, Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, and Michelle Knight – were rescued from their nine- to eleven-year captivity after Berry escaped and contacted police. They were freed from a house owned by Ariel Castro, the suspect in their kidnappings. A six-year-old daughter of Berry, born while she was captive, was also rescued.

Knight disappeared in Cleveland in 2002 at age 21, Berry in 2003 at 16, and DeJesus in 2004 at 14. While captive, the women had multiple pregnancies, at least one live birth (Berry’s daughter), and multiple miscarriages. The women were at times bound with chains and rope.

Ariel Castro was arrested on May 6, 2013, shortly after the women were freed. On May 8, Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, charges that carry prison sentences of 10 years to life. On May 9, Castro’s bail was set at $8 million. Additional charges are pending, including aggravated murder (for terminating the pregnancies), attempted murder, assault, a charge for each instance of rape, and a kidnapping charge for each day each victim was held captive. The case received front-page news coverage worldwide.

THE ABDUCTIONS

Michelle Knight
Michelle Knight was last seen on August 22, 2002, when she left her cousin’s house. She disappeared near West 116th Street and Lorain Avenue, on a day she was to appear in court for a child custody case concerning her son. She was 21 years old at the time of her disappearance. Police put far fewer resources into the Knight case than the Berry or DeJesus cases, partly because they had very few leads, and due in part to the fact that she was an adult, and was believed to have run away. Knight’s removal from the National Crime Information Center database, 15 months after she disappeared, has been criticized, although police and the FBI maintain that her inclusion or exclusion had no bearing on her rescue.

According to a report by officers who found Knight, she accepted a ride from Castro, but he instead drove her to his house. She was tied up in his basement and beaten, and was eventually moved upstairs to a locked room.

Before she escaped, police and family members came to believe that Knight may have left on her own, frustrated after losing custody of her son. Her mother thought she had once seen her with an older man at a shopping plaza on West 117th Street.

Amanda Berry
Amanda Marie Berry went missing on April 21, 2003, at age 16, one day before her 17th birthday. She was believed to have made it home from her job at a Burger King at West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue, and she changed from her uniform at her family’s apartment, but no one witnessed her there. She left money and all her clothes at home. She was known to have had plans to celebrate her birthday the next day. Berry has told police that after her shift a Burger King, she accepted a ride home from Castro, who said he had a son who worked there as well. She called her family to say she was getting a ride home, but instead was taken to Castro’s house and imprisoned.

Police initially considered Berry a runaway, until a man used her cell phone to call her mother, Louwanna Miller, claiming the teenager would return in a few days and that they were married. Miller searched for her daughter for three years, but died in 2006 of heart failure.

Berry was featured in a 2004 segment of America’s Most Wanted, which re-aired in 2005 and 2006 and linked her to Gina DeJesus, who at that point had subsequently also gone missing in Cleveland. They were profiled on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Montel Williams Show, where self-described psychic Sylvia Browne told Miller in 2004 that her daughter Amanda was dead, and that she was “in water.” Browne received significant media criticism for her prediction being “false and potentially damaging.”

Before her disappearance, Berry had been in a gifted program at John Marshall High School, but had switched to an online home school program in which she was on track for early graduation.

Gina DeJesus
Georgina “Gina” Lynn DeJesus went missing at age 14. She was last seen at a pay phone at about 3 p.m. on April 2, 2004, as she headed home from her middle school at West 105th Street and Lorain Avenue. She and suspect Ariel Castro’s daughter Arlene Castro had called Ariel’s wife, Grimilda Figueroa, asking to have a sleepover at DeJesus’ house, but Figueroa said they could not. Berry and DeJesus disappeared within five blocks of each other, perhaps even on the same block.

DeJesus said Castro offered her a ride to his house to see his daughter, her friend. Instead she was taken captive.

No AMBER Alert was issued the day DeJesus disappeared, because no one had witnessed her being abducted. The lack of an AMBER Alert angered her father, Felix DeJesus, who said in 2006 that he believed the public would listen even if the alerts become routine.
A week after Gina’s disappearance, police released a sketch and description of an Hispanic man aged 25 to 35, 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) tall, weighing 165 to 185 pounds (75 to 82 kg), with green eyes and a pencil-thin beard. The suspect had been seen near her school driving a light blue or white car, and asking for Gina.

DeJesus was featured on America’s Most Wanted in 2004, 2005, and 2006, and the television program also linked her to Berry. The disappearances received regular media attention over the years, as recently as 2012, while family and others held vigils and searched for DeJesus and Berry. Ariel Castro was identified by Gina’s family in video footage of two of these vigils and he reportedly participated in a search party and tried to get close to the family. Police kept an active investigation open, offering a $25,000 reward for information on their location.

THE DISCOVERY
On May 6, 2013, Knight, DeJesus, Berry, and a previously unknown 6-year-old female child of Berry were found in a home at 2207 Seymour Avenue, in the residential Tremont neighborhood 3 miles (4.8 km) from where the three young women had disappeared. Neighbor Angel Cordero responded to the noise of a woman screaming, but was apparently unable to communicate with the women inside the house, since he spoke little English.

Another neighbor, Charles Ramsey, joined Cordero at the door and said that a woman, later identified as Berry, told him that she was being kept in the house with her baby against her will. Because the door was locked, Ramsey and Cordero together kicked a hole in the bottom of it, and she crawled through, carrying her daughter. Berry was wearing a jumpsuit, white tank top, rings, and mascara.Upon being freed, she went to the house of another Spanish-speaking neighbor and called 9-1-1, saying, “Help me, I’m Amanda Berry … I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here, I’m free now.”

Several responding officers crawled in the broken bottom of the front door and searched the house with guns drawn. One of the officers saw a pair of eyes peeking through a slightly opened upstairs bedroom door. Michelle Knight fled the room and leapt into the arms of an officer, repeatedly saying “you saved me”. Soon DeJesus entered the hall from another room. The women were able to walk out of the home and all three women and the child were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center. They were all released from the hospital by the next morning, although Knight later returned for unspecified reasons.

INVESTIGATION DEVELOPMENTS
A suspect, Ariel Castro, was arrested on May 6, 2013, and charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape on May 8. Two brothers of Castro’s were also initially taken into custody, but they were released a few days later after police announced that they had no involvement in the kidnappings.

Police said that, based on victim interviews, the women were initially kept in chains and ropes in the basement before being locked in upstairs rooms. They were only twice taken outside, in disguise, and only as far as the garage. An unnamed police source said the young women had multiple miscarriages and at least one live birth. WKYC reported that the women were raped repeatedly by their captor, and beaten severely when they became pregnant. According to The New York Post, one young woman had three miscarriages, and Knight may have suffered hearing loss from the beatings. According to a police report obtained by CBS News, Michelle Knight had five miscarriages caused by starvation and beatings by Castro to her stomach.

The suspect is believed by police to have fathered Berry’s 6-year-old daughter, and the suspect’s DNA has been obtained to compare against the girl’s DNA. The girl was at times taken from the home, and visited the suspect’s mother, calling her “grandmother”. Castro’s DNA is being tested on a high priority basis so it can be compared to unknown DNA in other crimes.

Various law enforcement officers searched Ariel Castro’s property collecting evidence. A cadaver dog was used, but no human remains were discovered. The criminal investigation is ongoing as the Cleveland Police Department faces public scrutiny and questions about how it handled the women’s abductions.

Reprint, primary source: Wikipedia (verified through other reliable news sources)

Related: Amanda Berry’s 9-1-1 Call  (Audio)

Transcript of Amanda Berry’s 9-11 Call (Text)

An Open Letter to Charles Ramsey from a Fellow Cleveland Resident –By Eris Zion Venia Dyson | Guardian UK

 

No End In Sight For Guantánamo Hunger Strike –By Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel (Prisoner)| NYT

People dress in orange jumpsuits and black hoods as activists demand the closing of the U.S. military’s detention facility in Guantánamo during a protest, part of the Nationwide for Guantánamo Day of Action, on April 11 in New York’s Times Square. (Photo: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty)

One man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity. I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.

When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.

I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.

Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone.

I am still being force-fed. Two times a day they tie me to a chair in my cell. My arms, legs and head are strapped down. I never know when they will come. Sometimes they come during the night, as late as 11 p.m., when I’m sleeping.

There are so many of us on hunger strike now that there aren’t enough qualified medical staff members to carry out the force-feedings; nothing is happening at regular intervals. They are feeding people around the clock just to keep up. During one force-feeding the nurse pushed the tube about 18 inches into my stomach, hurting me more than usual, because she was doing things so hastily. I called the interpreter to ask the doctor if the procedure was being done correctly or not.

It was so painful that I begged them to stop feeding me. The nurse refused to stop feeding me. As they were finishing, some of the “food” spilled on my clothes. I asked them to change my clothes, but the guard refused to allow me to hold on to this last shred of my dignity.

When they come to force me into the chair, if I refuse to be tied up, they call the E.R.F. team. So I have a choice. Either I can exercise my right to protest my detention, and be beaten up, or I can submit to painful force-feeding.

The only reason I am still here is that President Obama refuses to send any detainees back to Yemen. This makes no sense. I am a human being, not a passport, and I deserve to be treated like one.

I do not want to die here, but until President Obama and Yemen’s president do something, that is what I risk every day. Where is my government? I will submit to any “security measures” they want in order to go home, even though they are totally unnecessary. I will agree to whatever it takes in order to be free. I am now 35. All I want is to see my family again and to start a family of my own.

The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply. At least 40 people here are on a hunger strike. People are fainting with exhaustion every day. I have vomited blood. And there is no end in sight to our imprisonment. Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice we have made.

I just hope that because of the pain we are suffering, the eyes of the world will once again look to Guantánamo before it is too late.

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Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel

Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel is a 35-year-old citizen of Yemen. As of April 30, 2013, he has been held at Guantánamo for 11 years three months. Moqbel told this story, through an Arabic interpreter, to his lawyers at the legal charity Reprieve in an unclassified telephone call.

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Reprint: Hunger Striking at Guantánamo  –By Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel | NYT

Related: The Guantánamo Docket | NYT

Photos: Stark Scenes from Guantánamo Hunger Strike –By Dave Gibson | MotherJones

 

New Delhi: Five Year Old Kidnapped, Gang-Raped by Neighbors –By Krista Mahr | TIME

Dozens of news vans are again camped in front of a major hospital in New Delhi, jockeying for space behind the yellow police barricades so ubiquitous in the Indian capital in recent months. Inside, the 5-year-old victim of another grotesque rape has been making the first steps in what is sure to be a long recovery after being kidnapped, sexually assaulted and left for dead last week in an apartment one floor beneath her family home. On April 22, doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital told reporters that the girl was showing steady signs of recovery after undergoing several procedures. Two men have been arrested in connection with the attack.

For days, scenes across the capital have recalled the weeks following the Dec. 16 gang rape of a 23-year-old student, who later died of her wounds. Demonstrators have again been gathering by the hundreds, clashing with authorities in their outrage at the failure of the police and the government to better protect India’s citizens and, in particular, its women. Several streets near the government in central New Delhi were barricaded as protesters from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, among others, marched toward Parliament.

Before this most recent attack, the initial outrage over the brutality of the Dec. 16 crime had been slowly fading in New Delhi, in spite of the unnervingly steady stream of violent rapes that have continued to be reported by Indian media across the country. In March, the government passed a new, tougher rape law that, among other things, allows for rapes resulting in fatalities to be punishable by death. But many say that the more systemic problems at the root of India’s rising violent crime — such as chronic police understaffing, poor training and a lack of political will to change either — have not been addressed. Sexual assaults are considered to be vastly underreported, and the ones that are reported often go nowhere. In New Delhi alone, of more than 600 rape cases filed last year, just one resulted in a conviction.

Photo: Manish Swarup/ AP

The police handling of both sexual assault and crime against children came under fresh attack as the circumstances of the 5-year-old’s ordeal emerged. After their daughter had gone missing two days before, the family of the victim heard her crying in a locked ground-floor room in the building they live in. After breaking into the room and rushing the girl to local police, the family told reporters that the officers on duty offered them 2000 rupees — a little less than $40 — to quietly disappear and not register a report, a practice observers say is common in a system ill-equipped to handle its caseload. Over the weekend, protesters stormed police headquarters, calling for the resignation of the police commissioner. In response, police handed out pamphlets promising that both the rape case and the offending authorities would be dealt with swiftly, and on Monday, Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told Parliament that the government had taken action against the officers on duty.

Reprint: Rape of 5-Year-Old Indian Girl Sparks New Outrage, Old Questions –By Krista Mahr | TIME

Related: Second Man Arrested in Rape of 5-Year Old Indian Girl | WashPost via AP

 

SCOTUS: Courthouse Doors Closed to Foreign Nationals Alleging Corporate Human Rights Abuses –By Nicole Flatow |ThinkProgress

What started out as a case about whether corporations could be held accountable in U.S. courts for human rights abuses against foreigners abroad turned into a case about whether anyone can be held accountable. And on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the answer is, mostly, no.

In a sweeping holding, Chief Justice John Roberts led a splintered court in ruling that several Nigerians alleging an oil company aided an abetted torture, arbitrary killings, and indefinite detention could not sue, because the corporate conduct occurred outside the United States. Roberts reasoned that what is known as the “presumption against extraterritoriality” applies to a 200-year-old statute that authorizes civil lawsuits by “aliens” for “violations of the law of nations,” meaning courts should err against enforcing a law intended to punish egregious foreign conduct in the frequent instances when that conduct takes place in a foreign country.

“[T]here is no indication that the ATS was passed to make the United States a uniquely hospitable forum for the enforcement of international norms,” Justice Roberts wrote for the majority in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum.

Roberts’ conclusion is rebutted by the very conduct the Alien Tort Statute was designed to prevent. Piracy was one of the primary torts targeted by Congress at the time of ATS’ passage – conduct that inherently takes place on the high seas. Justice Stephen Breyer explains in a four-justice concurring opinion that would decide the case on significantly narrower grounds:

As I have indicated, we should treat this Nation’s interest in not becoming a safe harbor for violators of the most fundamental international norms as an important jurisdiction related interest justifying application of the ATS in light of the statute’s basic purposes—in particular that of compensating those who have suffered harm at the hands of, e.g., torturers or other modern pirates. Nothing in the statute or its history suggests that our courts should turn a blind eye to the plight of victims in that “handful of heinous actions.

Now, that handful of heinous actions will have to find remedy elsewhere. This decision not only means that Nigerians cannot sue foreign corporations for their conduct abroad. On this particular point, the four-justice Breyer concurrence agreed that this case did not pass muster. Roberts’ sweeping pronouncement against extraterritoriality may also mean that foreign nationals subject to abuse, for example, at the hands of a U.S. corporation that houses its factories in places whose laws shield it from liability, or an American citizen who commits human rights violations abroad against foreigners, also could not be subject to suit in the United States.

In two recent federal appeals court decisions, lawsuits that challenged torture abroad by two foreign actors were allowed to proceed in U.S. courts because the defendants had lived or were living in the United States. As Justice Breyer points out, Congress is aware that the ATS is the basis for these sorts of lawsuits, and has not sought to amend the act in any way – likely because they recognize that the act was intended to target foreign conduct that is otherwise difficult to reach. But that did not stop the Roberts majority from inferring the narrowest possible congressional intent.

The scope of the opinion will not become clear until it is interpreted by courts. Extraterritoriality is a legal concept that asks not just whether conduct took place abroad, but also whether the claims “touch and concern the territory of the United States” such that a plaintiff can overcome the presumption against them. The only hint the court gives is that lawsuits against corporations will face a particularly heavy burden, noting, “Corporations are often present in many countries, and it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices.”

What is clear is that the presumption is exceedingly difficult to overcome, and that both individuals and corporations have a high chance of skirting liability simply by doing their dirty work elsewhere.

Reprint: High Court Squelches Ability to Hold Anyone Accountable for Any Human Rights Violations Abroad  – By Nicole Flatow |ThinkProgress

Related: Kiobel v. Shell Test Corporate Personhood –By Katie Redford | HuffPost

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My Two Cents: All the justices agreed the statute was inapplicable to the case at bar but for different reasons. In doing so, the SCOTUS served a major blow to human rights organizations that have used the statute, at least in recent times, to hold multinational corporations (MNCs) accountable for human rights violations committed against foreign nationals in their country of origin. Justice Roberts could have dismissed the case on a number of procedural grounds or simply deferred the case back to the lower court. Instead the majority used the case to redefine the ATS so narrowly as to render it useless. Why, I ask, was necessary to throw out the baby with the bath water? In my opinion, this case was not about policing the world or opening American courts to every frivolous claim of abuse on the planet.  This case was about a MNC, with significant ties to the U.S., allegedly committing gross human rights on foreign soil against U.S. foreign nationals.  MNCs are now free to set up shop in a foreign country, collude with host countries’ government for precious resources and land rights, pollute the soil and water, poison the air and have those who protest too much (or too loudly) summarily disappeared or executed w/o fear of being sued or held accountable in any meaningful way!

Silver lining: The SCOTUS left open the possibility that it might review other cases that are filed under the statute so long as the new elements and jurisdictional prerequisites are met.

 

About The Boston Bombing. . .

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During the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded at 2:49 p.m. EDT (18:49 UTC), killing 3 people and injuring 282 others. The bombs exploded about thirteen seconds and 180 yards (170 m) apart near the finish line on Boylston Street. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over the investigation and on April 18 asked the public for assistance before and after releasing photographs and videos of two suspects.The men were identified later that day with help from the public as the brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26.

The Tsarnaev brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan and are of Chechen heritage. Chechnya, a long-disputed Muslim territory in southern Russia, sought independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union and then fought two bloody wars with the authorities in Moscow. Russian assaults on Chechnya were brutal, killing tens of thousands of civilians as terrorist groups from the region staged attacks in central Russia. It was during this mayhem that the brothers sought refuge in America and eventually became U.S. citizens.

Shortly after the release of the photos, the suspects allegedly shot MIT campus police officer Sean Collier, 26, multiple times while he sat in his car. Officer Collier was later pronounced dead at Massachusetts General Hospital. The brothers went on to carjacked a Mercedes SUV and take the police on a chase through the streets of  Watertown, Massachusetts. The police reported that the suspects were throwing explosive devices out the window and a gunfight ensued. Over 200 rounds were fired during the exchange and MBTA Officer Richard Donohue Jr. was critically injured. The oldest brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was injured but escaped. An unprecedented city-wide lockdown and manhunt followed. Hundreds of police, national guard and FBI agents went door-to-door searching a 20-block area of Watertown. Law enforcement were beginning to think the suspect had alluded them when they received a call from a Watertown residence who thought the suspect was hiding in a boat in his backyard. The resident bravely checked the boat and found the bloody suspect. On April 19 at approximately 8:45 p.m., Dzhokhar arrested, given emergency care at the scene, and then transported to Massachusetts General Hospital. The Boston Police Department notified the public of his capture via Twitter and other social media platforms.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remains in the hospital. He was wounded during at least one of two gun battles with police on Friday, suffering gunshot wounds to his head, neck, legs and hand. Dzhokhar is mostly unable to speak because of the throat wound, but he has answered some questions by nodding his head. Thus far law enforcement has been able to confirm that other attacks were planned by the brothers, but that they were acting alone. No additional terrorist network cells or international plots have been linked to the Boston bombing.

Dzhokhar’s first court appearance took place in his room at Massachusetts General after Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler found he was lucid and aware of the nature of the proceedings. On April 22, he was charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and with malicious destruction of property resulting in death. The charges were issued shortly before the city paused at 2:50 p.m. (1850 GMT) to mark the moment a week ago when the bombs exploded.

A funeral was held for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager who was killed in the bombings, and a memorial service was planned for another victim, Chinese graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23. An 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard, was also killed.

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A few words about my sources, a few personal thoughts: I compiled the information above from numerous news sources  -both foreign and domestic. I made every reasonable effort to verify the accuracy of the info and to not sensationalize the story. The week was dramatic enough. Unlike mainstream media, I deliberately choose not to jump to any conclusions or speculate about whether the brothers’ country of origin contributed to their decision to kill innocent citizens. I am currently of the opinion that the men were U.S. citizens who committed acts of domestic terrorism. I further believe that justice and healing for the victims, for the victims’ loved ones, for Boston and for this country should not come at the expense of our values. We don’t need to create special labels, torture anyone or establish secrets trials. Our regular state and federal courts are equip to deal domestic terrorist and have done so successfully in the past.

Last but not least, I want to say that I am proud of the Boston Police Department, FBI, national guard, Gov. Deval Patrick, emergency assistance, the staff at Massachusetts General Hospital, and all the regular Bostonians who worked tirelessly to help each other, comfort each other, identify the suspects and bring the manhunt to an end quickly.

Thank you!

 

The Voices of Earth Day 2013

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Today is Earth Day! Over one billion people in 192 countries are participating from London to Sao Paolo, Seoul to Babylon City, New Delhi to New York, Rome to Cairo; people everywhere are taking action in their communities and helping depict today’s official theme, The Face of Climate Change. I decided to “play” on this year’s theme when creating the slideshow above.  The images I chose are meant to depict the voices behind some of the faces demanding climate change and host of other environmental initiatives.

Curious about what else is happening around the world? Here are just a few of the events taking place:

• In Copenhagen, Denmark—as well as in six other cities on five continents—the Danish Cultural Institute is organizing its annual CO 2 Green Drive Project in honor of Earth Day. Runners, walkers, bikers, and skaters are using their cities as canvasses to spell “CO 2“ with GPS devices.

• In Argentina, volunteers from the Surfrider Foundation are cleaning up the local beaches and planting evergreens and Tamarisk shrubs to help prevent wind and water erosion.

• 5,000 miles to the northeast, in Ghana, The Rural Education and Development Programme (REDEP) is hosting a three-part event that includes a community clean-up, a “Face of Climate Change” theatre production, and an environmentally-themed essay contest.

• A local organization in Jalandhar, India—in coordination with Earth Day Network India—is distributing free saplings to students and hosting a discussion about the effects of climate change and ways to mitigate it.

• In Milan, Italy, thousands of people are gathering for the Earth Day Italia Festival to learn about environmental issues and spur action on local green initiatives.

• Meanwhile in Seoul, South Korea, Ecomom Korea is organizing an “Eco-style”

• Earth Day Flash Mob, a variation of the popular song “Gangnam Style,” as well as hosting an Earth Day Walkathon and an Earth Day exhibition, which will showcase The Face of Climate Change photo display.

• In Santa Barbara, California, thousands of people attended the local Earth Day Festival, which included live music, speakers, a Green Car Show, and special awards given to Van Jones and Bill Nye.

• In Veracruz, Mexico, Tortugas Fundacion Yepez is mobilizing volunteers to protect the habitat of sea turtles by cleaning up the local beaches and organizing a reforestation campaign.

• The Bent Al-Rafedain Organization in Babylon, Iraq—in cooperation with the Department of the Environment—is honoring Earth Day by documenting the sources of pollution in their community and organizing a media campaign to educate residents and encourage government officials to reduce pollution.

• In Columbus, Ohio, Green Columbus is mobilizing hundreds of volunteers to pull invasive plants, clean up neighborhoods, and plan trees at over 100 volunteer sites across the state.

• Far away in Chuuk, Micronesia, Xavier High School is hosting an Earth Day Conference with the theme “The Face of Climate Change” that will feature a neighborhood clean-up, speakers, educational workshops, and an environmentally-themed school song competition.

Whatever you do on Earth Day 2013, I challenge you to do it every day and see what difference you can make from now until Earth 2014.

Reprint: Earth Day Network

 

Malala Yousafzai Named TIME’s 100 Most Influential People

© Mark Seliger for TIME

Malala Yousafzai: People whose courage has been met by violence populate history. Few, though, are as young as Malala was when, at 15, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus in northwestern Pakistan and shot her and two other girls, attempting to both kill Malala and, as the Taliban later said, teach a “lesson” to anyone who had the courage to stand up for education, freedom and self-determination, particularly for girls and women. Or as young as 11, when Malala began blogging for the BBC’s Urdu site, writing about her ambition to become a doctor, her fears of the Taliban and her determination to not allow the Taliban — or her fear — to prevent her from getting the education she needed to realize her dreams.

Malala is now where she wants to be: back in school. The Taliban almost made Malala a martyr; they succeeded in making her a symbol. The memoir she is writing to raise awareness about the 61 million children around the world who are not in school indicates she accepts that unasked-for responsibility as a synonym for courage and a champion for girls everywhere. However Malala concludes her book, her story so far is only just beginning.

The 15-year old, who also has been nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, had surgery in February to repair the hole left in her skull by a gunman’s bullet, and now lives in exile in Britain.

The annual list picks luminaries from art, business and politics whose achievement make them among the world’s most vital and vibrant figures. A full list of this year’s selection is available at TIME.

Description courtesy of Chelsea Clinton